Sensory Processing Disorder - SPD

When I first started researching the problems my son was having I began with looking at Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). His problems ultimately proved to extend far beyond those of SPD, but it was as good a place to start as any to learn more about how people on the Autistic Spectrum experience the world, for although everyone who has SPD is not autistic, everyone who is autistic has some degree of SPD.

There are many different ways in which it can present, but the most common way seems to be hypersensitivity. The wrong level of noise can push me over the edge and there have been occasions when both the children have been screaming and a sense of panic has built up in me and I have literally put my hands over my ears and joined them in the screaming, leaving my ever suffering husband to calm all three of us down.

I am also often extremely bothered by noises that may only be small or far away, and when I complain to other people about them they just don’t know what I’m talking about. They can’t hear the noise, either because their ears are less sensitive, or because they are doing a better job of tuning out the irrelevant. I find it harder to tune out unimportant noises and therefore find it extremely difficult to watch the TV if there is even the faintest source of noise in the room, or to sleep at night if there is any noise at all. Likewise a lamp on in the corner of my view makes it impossible for me to watch the TV with dimmed lights as it’s too much of a distraction.

In the same way, when I am focused on doing something that has my attention, I can’t stand it when someone comes up and touches me, because it pulls my attention away. A touch that may be welcome and comforting at the right moment, can be torturous at the wrong moment. My poor husband has been shrugged off and pushed away many times when he has tried to offer a simple hug. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I simply can’t cope with it. In general I’m not a hugging person and the people closest to me know this. I recently tried to offer my mother a hug to comfort her because our dog had just passed away. I knew it was the appropriate thing to do, so even though it didn’t feel comfortable to me to do it, I offered it for my mother. I couldn’t take it to the point of just stepping forward and giving her a hug, so I stood with my arms open expecting her to step into my space and understand that I was offering a hug. I was so awkward about it and it was so out of character that she actually asked said ‘What are you doing?’

Sometimes if too many of these little sensory irritations come together -  a bright light, a distracting noise, an unwelcome touch from someone -  it can all build up and create a sense of panic in me that very often will bring me to the point that the smallest thing will send me into a meltdown. I think this is why meltdowns often seem to be about something small. They’re not, they’re about a whole culmination of factors with one last straw that’s finally triggered it off.

Another way in which SPD affects me is in my extreme clumsiness. This is due to vestibular and proprioception problems, which basically means that I am not very good at gauging how my body relates to the world around it, and how to move effectively. I trip and fall, I spill drinks, I nock the edge of things on shelves when I am trying to set them down, I drop things and fail to pick them up again…and again…and again. It’s as though things just slip through my fingers! As a child I was always the last to be picked for sports because of my complete lack of coordination, and complete inability to hit a ball or throw it in a net. It got to the point when I would forge letters from my mother to get me out of PE lessons.

I don’t suffer from SPD as severely as many others on the spectrum do. It doesn’t cause me pain as it does to some, but it does cause me an extreme amount of irritation. The noises and the lights, and feeling crowded by other people makes me feel panicky, and the never ending clumsiness makes me feel as though I can’t trust my own body. For me I don’t believe these problems are insurmountable, but they are still an important part of my Aspergers puzzle.